Islamic Burial Rites

— How These Women Are Making a Change in US

Ramla Shaikh works with a local funeral home in Avon, Connecticut, to assist with Muslim burials.

Most funeral homes don’t know how to bury Muslims but a group of Muslim women seek to introduce a change.

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More than a dozen women watch closely as Ida Khalil measures the length of the mannequin lying on the white table in front of her, stretching the palm of her hand and moving up from the figure’s toes to its head, HuffPost reported on Sunday.

She then measures and cuts the white shroud, the garment in which Muslims are wrapped when they are buried — three pieces of cloth for men and five for women. Muslims traditionally aren’t buried in caskets, a practice connected to the belief that everyone is equal in death and no one takes along any of the possessions, status or wealth they may have accumulated in life.

Khalil’s voice, confident and clear, reverberates in the room as she explains the rituals of how to wash and wrap a body according to the Islamic tradition. She wears blue medical gloves and a medical apron over her long black abaya, a loose garment worn by Muslim women, that she paired with a keffiyeh-print hijab. Behind her are the Palestinian and American flags, representing the large Palestinian American community in the town.

The women in the audience tilt their heads with Khalil’s every move, some taking detailed notes, others recording the demonstration on their phones. Some of the women came alone, while others came in pairs, including mothers and daughters. The women ― some in their early 20s, others in their 80s, and still others of every age in between ― sit in neat rows of folding chairs at this cultural center, their jackets hanging off the backs of seats. The sun sets, and a chilly fall wind hits the doors.

Khalil is here because she believes it’s critical for the next generation of Muslim women to learn how to wash bodies. Otherwise, she worries, the tradition may be forgotten. In Islam, death is seen not as an end but rather as a transition from one lifetime to another. It’s not a taboo subject, and Muslims are encouraged to prepare for death to come at any moment, including by learning the related traditions, rituals and spiritual elements through the Islamic faith.

Despite this, many women in the U.S. are too afraid of touching a body to learn how to prepare for their loved ones’ deaths until it’s too late, Khalil said.

“They don’t get that this is incredibly important,” she told HuffPost.

‘You’re Putting Them To Peace’

Islam, like many other religions, sets out a specific process for what should happen to a person’s body after they die. The body must be washed and not embalmed, then buried quickly, usually within 24 hours.

Men are usually washed by men, and women by women. There are a few exceptions made for relatives such as parents and children. The Islamic faith outlines the protocols for preparing the body, including washing it (starting with the right side), braiding the hair, perfuming the body and wrapping it in cotton.

Above all, there is an emphasis on dignifying the deceased. Those who wash are forbidden from relating the details of a body, and the process is meant to occur in silence. Muslims believe that washing, burying and praying for the dead are a collective duty. When a member of the community passes, all are encouraged to participate in funeral prayers and send condolences to the family.

Khalil, now 57, first learned to wash a body when she was 44.

“I said fine, let me take the class. But I’ll never do this. I’m afraid of dead people,” she said, recalling when two women came to the mosque she attended to teach others how to carry out the process.

A few months later, Khalil’s mother reached out. Her sister-in-law had died, and she wanted Khalil to wash her.

Khalil was hesitant, but she didn’t want to reject her mother’s request. She showed up to the mosque, accompanied by two other women. The room was silent and Khalil found herself washing her aunt’s body without concern. She thought she’d have trouble sleeping that night, but she slept well, knowing she could honor her mother and aunt.
Thirteen years later, Khalil has washed more than a hundred women at three mosques across New Jersey.

“I used to be afraid of dead people,” she said. “Now I could sleep next to dead people.”

Islamic Burial Rites: How These Women Are Making a Change in US
Ida Khalil demonstrates how to wash and prepare a body for burial at Beit Anan Community Center in Paterson, New Jersey, Oct. 22.

Some washes are harder than others. Khalil recalls washing and preparing the body of a 5-month-old fetus that did not make it to term. She also recalls washing the body of a domestic violence victim who was punctured with stab wounds.

At the cultural center where Khalil taught her class, she demonstrated the Islamic pre-ritual wash conducted before prayers, washing between the mannequin’s fingers, face and feet up to the ankles. She used warm water, as she always does. She told her audience that she tells the families of the deceased to bring their loved one’s favorite soaps and shampoos.

Khalil told the women in the class to think about themselves and treat the body as they would want to be treated.

“It’s their last bath,” she told her audience. “Picture yourself.”

Some women asked if nail polish and piercings should be removed. Yes, Khalil said. The majority of women said it was their first time taking Khalil’s class, though some said they’d taken one before.

Naemeh Asfour, 25, attended Khalil’s class with her mother. It was her first time. Asfour and her mother had promised that whoever died first would wash the other.

“Everyone’s a little scared seeing someone dead, or seeing someone you love in that position,” she said. “But in reality, it’s very peaceful when you think about it. You’re giving someone that final bath and you’re putting them to peace.”

‘We’ll Have To Step Up’

In Muslim-majority countries, funeral homes abide by the burial customs of the faith, a process that emphasizes minimalism. After the bodies are washed and wrapped with the white shroud, the deceased are buried facing toward Mecca, the city Muslims face to pray.

But many funeral homes in the U.S. aren’t aware of Islamic traditions, or well equipped to carry them out.

Ramla Shaikh recognized this immediately after moving to the U.S. in 1987. She noticed that the majority of funeral homes embalmed their dead ― the process of preserving a corpse by treating it with chemicals, which is forbidden by the Islamic faith ― or cremated them.

Islamic Burial Rites: How These Women Are Making a Change in US
Khalil giving a demonstration at Beit Anan Community Center, Oct. 22.

So Shaikh, who lives in Avon, Connecticut, now collaborates with a local funeral home when someone in the area’s Muslim community dies. If the body of a Muslim person is brought to the funeral home, they call Shaikh to make sure a Muslim, sometimes Shaikh herself, washes the body.

Shaikh has also negotiated prices with the funeral home on the mosque’s behalf. Traditional services, which include embalming and holding a body for an extended period of time, cost approximately $10,000. But since Muslims prohibit embalming and bury their dead within 24 hours of their passing, Shaikh was able to reduce that cost to just $3,000. (The process is often paid for by social services in Muslim-majority countries, but in the U.S., people from a community band together to cover the costs. Shaikh’s mosque will help families cover expenses if they can’t afford them.)

“If somebody passes away in this country, a Muslim woman or a man, there isn’t a service or aren’t any professionals who can do it here like for the Christians, Jews, or other religions,” she said. “We don’t have that, so we’ll have to step up and do it for our own.”
Shaikh has created a WhatsApp group to coordinate whenever someone in the community dies. She’s been able to help people all over the state.

Islamic Burial Rites: How These Women Are Making a Change in US
Audience members observe Khalil’s demonstration.

Shaikh first washed a body in 2004, when her mother died. She has since washed many more, including those of her mother-in-law and friends of friends, and she persuades other women to get involved with the practice.

“I needed to teach other people so when it comes my time, and I go, somebody will be there to wash me,” she said.

Safwan Shaikh ― the imam at Ramla’s mosque, and no relation to her ― said his community is grateful to have Ramla to streamline the washing and shrouding for their members. Not all mosques are as organized, and the imam said those mosque administrators need to uphold their obligations to the community. In addition to offering religious guidance to the body washers, Safwan ensures that families of the deceased have access to the mosque’s resources, including a memorial service and assistance with expenses.

“It’s something that’s a necessity,” Safwan said, “and I can’t imagine the community not having these for both men and women.”

The mosque had a women’s washing team, headed by Ramla, before there was one for men.

“Muslim women have a lot of rights and responsibilities,” she said. “They are portrayed in front of the world that they are oppressed, but they are leaders in every way.”

Back in Paterson, Khalil hasn’t taken a penny for her work. She never plans to.

“I would do it [for free], even if I’m poor and I have nothing to eat and I have to beg,” Khalil said.

She said the experience has been life-changing. It’s made her reflect on the shortness of life and her purpose in this world. Her demeanor fluctuates between patience and a somber acceptance, as she’s no longer stressing over the small mishaps in life.

She’s silent when she attends funerals and burials, and demands the same from those around her. A few weeks ago, she scolded funeral attendees who were being disruptive and making unnecessary small talk. Respecting the deceased means acknowledging what is to come, for her and for everyone else in that room.

“We’re all going to be in this position,” Khalil said. “It’s a part of life.”

Complete Article HERE!

From Christianity to Buddhism

— A Comprehensive Guide to Religious Funerals

By EMMANUAL

Funerals hold significant cultural and religious importance worldwide. These rituals mark the end of a person’s life and provide an opportunity for communities to mourn, remember, and celebrate the departed soul. Regardless of different religious beliefs, funerals share a common thread of honoring the deceased and offering solace to the grieving. Let’s explore the diverse types of funeral practices observed in different religions around the globe, each reflecting the unique perspectives on life, death, and the afterlife.

1. Funeral Practices in Christianity:

Christianity, one of the world’s largest religions, views death as a transition to an eternal life with God. Christian funerals typically involve a somber yet hopeful tone, focusing on the belief in resurrection and salvation. Funeral services often include prayers, hymns, scripture readings, eulogies, and the sharing of memories. Burial is a common practice, with cemeteries serving as sacred grounds for the departed.

2. Funeral Customs in Islam:

In Islam, death is considered a natural part of life, and the afterlife is a fundamental belief. The Janazah (funeral) rituals are guided by Islamic principles and usually take place soon after death. The body is washed, shrouded in a simple cloth, and a specific prayer, Salat al-Janazah, is performed in congregation. Muslims bury their deceased facing Mecca, emphasizing humility and equality in death.

3. Jewish Funeral Traditions:

Judaism, with its rich traditions and customs, approaches death as a continuation of the soul’s journey. Jewish funerals prioritize the prompt burial of the deceased, often within 24 hours of death. The deceased is ritually washed (Tahara) and dressed in a plain white shroud (Tachrichim). Eulogies are avoided, and the focus is on prayers, Psalms, and the sharing of memories during the funeral service.

4. Hindu Funeral Ceremonies:

Hinduism, a complex and diverse religion, regards death as part of the soul’s cycle of rebirth (Samsara). Antyesti, or the Last Rites, is a crucial funeral ceremony in Hindu traditions. The body is cremated, and the ashes are often scattered in a sacred river. Hindu funerals may also include other rituals such as Pinda Daan, offering rice balls to the deceased for spiritual liberation.

5. Buddhist Funeral Observances:

Buddhism, known for its teachings on impermanence, interprets death as a transition to another life or state. Buddhist funerals vary among different cultures but commonly include chanting, reciting sutras, and performing rituals to guide the soul towards a positive rebirth. Cremation is a widespread practice, and some Buddhist communities also practice sky burials or water burials.

6. Sikh Funeral Rites:

Sikhism emphasizes the unity of the soul with the eternal creator, and death is seen as a merging of the soul with the divine. The Antam Sanskar, or Last Rites, involves bathing the body, followed by prayers and hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh scriptures). Sikhs opt for cremation, considering it a way to liberate the soul from the cycle of birth and death.

7. Traditional Chinese Funeral Customs:

Chinese funeral traditions are deeply rooted in ancestral worship and veneration. Chinese families pay great respect to their ancestors and believe in maintaining strong familial connections even after death. Funeral rites include elaborate ceremonies, offerings, and prayers. Burial, cremation, and entombment in family graves are practiced based on regional and cultural differences.

8. Native American Funeral Traditions:

Native American communities have diverse spiritual beliefs, each with its unique funeral customs. The concept of death often involves a cyclical view of life and rebirth. Funeral practices include rituals, dances, and ceremonies that honor the deceased and guide their spirits to the afterlife. Burial methods vary, such as ground burials, tree burials, or sky burials.

9. African Traditional Funeral Ceremonies:

African traditional funeral customs are deeply connected to ancestor veneration and the spiritual world. These rituals differ widely across the continent’s diverse cultures. Funerals are elaborate events, often lasting several days, and include dancing, singing, and feasting. Burials may take place in family graveyards or sacred sites.

10. Ancient Egyptian Funeral Rituals:

The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife and devoted considerable effort to ensure a smooth transition for the deceased. Mummification was a significant part of the funeral process, preserving the body for the journey to the afterlife. Elaborate ceremonies and rituals were conducted to honor the deceased and seek protection in the afterlife.

11. Modern Secular Funeral Practices:

In modern times, secular or non-religious funerals have gained popularity. These services often focus on celebrating the life of the deceased rather than emphasizing religious beliefs. They may include personalized elements, music, and readings that reflect the individual’s interests and values.

12. Comparative Analysis of Funeral Practices:

When examining funeral practices across various religions, common themes of reverence for the deceased and comforting the bereaved emerge. Despite differences in rituals, these practices share the purpose of providing closure and honoring the departed soul.

13. Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Death:

Cultural and religious beliefs significantly influence how societies perceive and approach death. Understanding these differences fosters tolerance and compassion in times of grief. Coping with loss is a deeply human experience, transcending cultural boundaries.Funerals, regardless of religious affiliations, are a testament to humanity’s shared experience of life and death. Each type of funeral bears witness to a community’s beliefs, values, and traditions, offering solace to the bereaved and celebrating the life of the departed. Embracing the diversity of funeral practices enriches our understanding of the human journey.

Complete Article HERE!

Muslim Funeral Rites Explained

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For many years, Muslim funeral rituals have attracted attention from Christian counterparts mainly because of their simplicity.

Yesterday, two high profile octogenarians, who played key roles in Kenyan politics and civil service, were laid to rest.

One, ex-minister Simeon Nyachae, a Christian of a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) faith and Senator Yusuf Haji of the Muslim faith. The two funeral services sparked debate on social media with a section of Christians seeking answers on Muslim funeral rites.

Nyachae, who died on February 1 at the Nairobi Hospital aged 88, was laid to rest two weeks later at his Nyosia village in Kisii County. His remains had been preserved at the Lee Funeral Home for 14 days before being flown to Kisii on Sunday.

On the other hand, the late Garissa Senator, who died on Monday morning, was interred at the Lang’ata Muslim Cemetry, in Nairobi, miles away from home, less than 24 hours after his death. He was 80 years old.

The cost of giving a loved one a decent send off took centre stage on the social media debate, with many Kenyans agreeing that Muslim burials cost way less.

Mohammed Hersi, a hotelier and vocal commentator on social media, took to his Facebook page to explain what happens when a Muslim dies.

In Muslim, Hersi said, the burial of a loved one should take place as quickly as possible after death and preferably within 24 hours.

Where the cause of death is uncertain this may and should be determined prior to burial.

The person who has died is washed as quickly as possible after death and wrapped in a simple white shroud For men, up to three pieces of cloth may be used for this purpose, for women, five.

In many countries, a coffin is not used, but in the UK, where this is often forbidden, a coffin is permitted.

Hersi revealed that the Muslim rarely transport a body.

“You get buried where you passed away…For us your burial is where death (maut) will find you, ” he wrote.

The Muslim burials timings are mainly dictated by prayers times.

The Muslim community prays five times a day: Fajr at 5am, Dhuhur at 1pm, Asr 4pm, Maghrib 6.30pm and Isha 8pm.

“Most of the burial prayers would coincide with the 1pm or 4pm prayers for various reasons ranging eg to allow immediate family like children to arrive etc, ” he said.

“We try and avoid evening or nighttime burial unless it is a case of an accident and departed ought to be laid to rest as quickly as possible.”

Preparation of the body 

The body is prepared either at home or even at some mosque.

Ghusl is the full-body ritual purification mandatory before the performance of ritual and janaza prayer.

The remains are wrapped in a simple plain cloth (the Kafan) which costs less than Sh500. After that, instead of a coffin, the deceased is transported to the mosque in a Janaza that is returned after use and reused by another family.

“Our mosque in South C does that very well and a few masjid in Mombasa, ” he added.

When a Muslim passes on in town, it becomes the responsibility of fellow muslims to give the departed brother or sister a decent burial.

The body is then carried away in a Janaza and is placed at the back of the mosque awaiting the normal prayers to happen.

Immediately after the normal prayers, an announcement is made informing worshippers of the presence of a body of a departed brother or sister and requested to join the family in burying their kin.

“It is considered a blessing to take part in such even if you were not known to the departed. We then bring the body to the front of the congregation, ” he added.

Before the body leaves for its final resting place, the family led by the eldest son and the Imam ask if there is anyone who owed the departed anything or if the departed owed anyone anything.

The son or immediately male family member are expected to take responsibility for the debt.

“We then all stand behind the Janaza and final prayers are led by the imam. Sometimes we have more than one body so they are all laid out in a line, ” he said.

The service takes less than 10 minutes and thereafter the body is picked by young men, who mostly are not even known to the deceased, and taken to the final resting place.

Once at the graveyard immediate family members preferably sons and brothers to the deceased will go inside the grave which is always ready.

The body is removed from the Janaza and placed inside a grave that has a mould of mud which acts as a pillow where the head of the deceased is placed. Additionally, the body faces the right side towards Mecca (the Muslim community faces Mecca when praying).

Wooden planks are used to enclose where the body is placed and if there is no wood, concrete slabs can be used.

Once done the family members step out, the grave is filled with soil.

Unlike in Christian funeral rituals, Muslims don’t observe protocols as everyone is considered equal regardless of their status.

“Once done a quick sermon is given hardly 5 to 10 minutes and we are done. We make no speeches and there are no protocols at the mosque or at the burial site based on your worldly position, ” he said.

“At the mosque and burial site we are all equal.”

In Muslim funeral rites, women are not allowed at the gravesite. If they attend, they can only watch from a distance.

Complete Article HERE!

Green Burial Wants to Clean Up American Funerals

Natural burials can remind us that death and grief are natural, too.

The Preserve at All Saints in Waterford, Michigan.

By Jake Maynard

Basil Eldadah assumed his father’s funeral would be simple. Years before, Basil’s father had taken steps to make the process easy on the family, purchasing plots and making arrangements. But in 2012, when his father died, Eldadah and his family discovered how complicated and impersonal the American funeral industry could be.

First, Eldadah learned that what his father had purchased was only the plot itself. Digging the grave, installing the concrete grave liner, and filling in the gravesite were not included. But the larger issue was that the cemetery required the use of a vault or burial liner: a concrete box that encases the coffin, keeping dirt from collapsing the casket. Eldadah’s family is Muslim, and it’s customary in Muslim traditions for a body to be placed directly in the soil. He described Muslim burial as “a process that reminds us of the humility of being from dust and returning to dust.” But most American cemeteries require concrete vaults or grave liners to prevent dirt settling at the gravesite—it makes the cemeteries easier to mow and eliminates the spooky depressions overtop graves—despite the fact that it is counter to the religious traditions of Muslims and some Jewish denominations. For Eldadah’s father, the best the family could do was to add some dirt to the inside of the vault.

>Later, as the grief began to lift, Eldadah questioned whether there was a more reverent, natural approach to burial. As an active member of his local Muslim community and as a researcher who studies aging, he knew that his experience wasn’t unique. “My father’s funeral really kind of planted the seed in my mind,” he told me. He eventually learned that there is a name for what he wanted: a green burial ground.

Green burial doesn’t have an official definition but generally refers to a range of cemetery practices that limit fossil fuel usage and the amount of human-made materials put into the ground. More broadly, the green burial movement wants to help people approach death with a more natural, and less commercial, outlook.

Green cemeteries substitute exotic hardwood caskets with renewable wood coffins or burial shrouds, and they don’t line graves with concrete. They shun mown lawns for native grasses and trees. Some green cemeteries mark graves with native stone or plant memorial trees; others don’t mark graves at all. They reject embalming as unnatural, unnecessary, and toxic. (Embalming chemicals contribute to high rates of cancer in mortuary workers.) Green cemeteries look more like nature preserves or parks than the orderly cemeteries we’re accustomed to.

The nonprofit Green Burial Council certifies cemeteries as green—it’s kind of like LEED building certification—and keeps tabs on the environmental impact of conventional burial. It says that each year American burials put more than 4 million gallons of embalming fluid, 20 million board feet of hardwood, 81,000 tons of metal, and 1.6 million tons of concrete into the ground. Cremation, promoted by the death care industry as the greener alternative, uses the equivalent of around 20 gallons of gasoline per cremation and vaporizes heavy metals (from dental fillings and surgical implants) into the atmosphere. While cremation conserves physical space, green burial conserves energy.

Burial wasn’t always so complicated. Embalming only gained traction among wealthy Americans during the Civil War, which essentially started the modern funeral industry. (Abraham Lincoln was embalmed for his funeral train, and reembalmed at many stops, but onlookers thought he looked nasty.) Concrete grave liners came later, allowing for today’s flat, uniform suburban cemeteries.

Generally speaking, laws governing burial are complicated and vague. In most states you can bury a loved one on your own property, but local zoning ordinances often contradict the state laws. While no states legally require embalming or grave liners, the funeral industry has made them so standard that in some places, they’re essentially requirements. Neither practice has any public health benefit, but embalming stretches the possible time between death and funeral. Embalming is popular only in the U.S. and Canada; in the rest of the world, it’s actually quite rare. Funeral homes have normalized embalming because it saves on refrigerator space and because they can sell larger funeral packages.

After his father’s funeral, Eldadah let his idea percolate until he found the right partner, one who’d also been surprised by the cost of a funeral. In 2019, Eldadah’s friend Haroon Mokhtarzada, a successful tech entrepreneur, received a call asking him to help fund the burial of a local community member. He was glad to help, but the cost rattled him.

“I was thinking it was going to be a couple hundred bucks and it was several thousand dollars,” he said. “And I came to learn that the average burial in Maryland is $10,500.” The national average, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, is about $9,000. (This chart shows how complicated itemized funeral expenses can be.) Mokhtarzada said, of the funeral’s cost, “There’s something that bothered me about that to my core.”

He asked, “Why does a hole in the ground cost $10,000?” The same use of embalming fluid, concrete, and hardwood that make death so polluting also make it expensive. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, funeral costs jumped 225 percent since 1986; GoFundMe hosted 125,000 memorial campaigns in 2020. Funeral poverty is an underreported crisis in America.

Eldadah had contacted Mokhtarzada previously about the project, but he was too busy to get involved. Seven years later, backed with his money and startup expertise, Mokhtarzada emailed Eldadah and said, “We’re going to make this thing happen.” Together, they set to work making metro D.C.’s first nonprofit green cemetery. If it works, it will be the most urban green cemetery in the U.S.

There are 82 cemeteries in America certified as green by the Green Burial Council (you can read about the certification standards here), but the movement has struggled to take hold near major cities due to the price of land. Pete McQuillin, who operates Penn Forest Natural Burial Ground near Pittsburgh, told me that it took him three years to find a property close to the city. In the nine years since Penn Forest opened, it has interred only 205 bodies. (Because people usually want to be buried next to their deceased loved ones, cemeteries are notoriously tough to get started.) But the number of burials is growing steadily every year, as does the execution of Penn Forest’s broader mission: It strives to be a multiuse park, hosting guided nature hikes, community roundtables on death, and a DIY coffin-making class.

Mokhtarzada and Eldadah have similar goals for their site, a woody, 40-acre plot in Silver Spring, Maryland, tucked between a concrete factory and a church. (The price? Almost $2 million.) When I first talked to them in July, they were excited to explain the project’s overarching goals. “We’ve started to envision a community-gathering place,” Mokhtarzada said. “Not just a creepy place where you only go to pay your respects and then you leave. But some place where people would want to spend quality time … a space where not only do the living serve the dead by providing simple, natural, and dignified burials, but also where the dead can fuel life.”

By December, they were feeling the weight of bureaucracy. In between fielding questions from their new neighbors about water quality and funeral traffic, the two men had poured $200,000 into the project before breaking ground. There were nonprofit lawyers, land-use lawyers, engineers, architects, permitting fees. And they were still struggling to come up with a name. Like burial, starting a cemetery was more complicated than anticipated.

While Mokhtarzada’s startup experience was helpful, he learned that the cemetery business is unique. “In a startup mode,” he said, “you just figure out as much as you need to figure out, you don’t figure out what this thing’s going to be in five and 10 years. But what I’ve found that was different in this creative process is we had to think decades into the future. We had to think in three dimensions in decades.”

To help with that part, Eldadah and Mokhtarzada hired architect Jack Goodnoe, who has designed some of America’s best-known green burial grounds. Goodnoe started designing conventional cemeteries in the 1980s and began working with green cemetery movement when the movement began in the late ’90s. While Goodnoe supports greening the death industry, he also thinks that green and conventional cemeteries need to learn from each other. The green burial movement has been led by charismatic industry outsiders—academics, environmentalists, spiritual types—with big ideas offset by a lack of knowledge about cemetery management. Goodnoe recommends that “when someone wants to start a green cemetery, they partner with a traditional cemetery that can bring all the legal, grief, record-keeping elements that they’ve learned from decades in the industry.”

Eldadah and Mokhtarzada don’t plan to work with a traditional cemetery, but they have implemented some conventional cemetery practices at Goodnoe’s recommendation. For example, some green cemeteries let people choose their own burial site anywhere on the property, which Goodnoe worries could lead to record-keeping issues for future cemetery managers. At their site, Eldadah and Mokhtarzada have taken Goodnoe’s advice of burying in one area at a time and evenly spacing gravesites like a conventional cemetery might.

They hope to open for burials in 2021 and have already generated some interest among the local Muslim community. But in order to fulfill their inclusive mission, Eldadah and Mokhtarzada will have to expand beyond green burial’s usual demographic. Hannah Rumble, an anthropologist who studies burial in the U.K., told me that green burial has been “quite a middle-class aesthetic and cultural practice,” and hasn’t yet become popular among the working-class people who could most benefit from lower burial prices (often less than half the price of conventional burial) and less upkeep responsibility. But traditions change slowly, she says, and as the last rite of passage, burial traditions are usually some of the last to change.

On a more spiritual level, Rumble has observed the way that green burial has influenced the grieving process of people she’s interviewed. She says, “The bereaved like to go over time to watch the trees grow, to watch the site developed to maturity, to watch the plants bed in. It’s interesting how their own emotional journey with grief has changed and how they see it reflected in the development of the natural burial ground. … And so now their visits are more about just going and enjoying the bird songs, seeing how the site’s developed, seeing what initiatives are going on. It becomes a kind of community, a community of practice.”

This sentiment is ultimately how the green burial movement overlaps their ecological and spiritual goals. Conventional cemeteries, with their permanent headstones and concrete grave liners, encourage us to think that even in death, we’ll last forever. What natural burial offers is the reminder that death and grief are like all natural processes: They change and evolve, grow and decay. Like Rumble says, “I think what’s really powerful about that ecological metaphor is it’s fairly timeless. And it’s one that, irrespective of your faith, people can relate to.”

Complete Article HERE!

Writing Into and Out of My Long-Distance Grief

Mourning on a wintry day at the end of a year that has all been winter.

By

I walk out, steering the stroller with icy fingers. I pass the house that always appears as if someone is moving in or out, the gray house with a garage full of ugly toys, the white house with an attractive couple who dine every day at 7 p.m., which I know because I peek in on my daily quarantine walks, comforted by the sight of the woman’s top bun and the man’s beard as they sit across from each other at a farmhouse table.

Today is winter. A crisp, cold, sunny day, the kind that makes you think for a few hours that perhaps this — the end of the year in Michigan — isn’t too bad. But when I reach the park, it is all sorrow. Each blade of grass, shimmering in December light, is sorrow. The crackle of each remaining leaf is sorrow.

Muslims recite the azan — the call to prayer — in the ear of every newborn, but we leave it out of the final prayer for the deceased. The point is that our time here is as brief as the moment between the call to prayer and the start of prayer. Now, in the park, the journey each drop of melted snow makes from branch to wilted grass is sorrow.

For those, like me, living far from home, there is a worry so common it is banal: the Call. The call that comes when a loved one is hurt or dying. We brace ourselves against it, convinced that anticipation is inoculation against grief. To this day, I sleep with my phone on silent only when I am back in Pakistan; home is the place where late-night calls don’t seize the ground beneath you.

In Michigan, when the phone rings in the middle of the night, it’s usually just a wrong number or a relative who thinks America is five hours behind and not 10. Sometimes though, it is a sunny morning, the house smells of coffee and the baby is playing with tiny toes when the phone rings, and something in you, that animal that senses danger before it manifests, tells you that it’s bad news.

My husband once asked my father if he believed in saints. Abbu responded that if there was any saint in his life, it was his last surviving uncle, Chacha Jee. On Dec. 1, Chacha Jee died, his lungs, liver and heart collapsing in quick succession in an emergency ward in Pindi, Pakistan.

The official diagnosis was pneumonia, but the symptoms were close enough to Covid-19 for them to transfer him to the Covid ward. No family was allowed to visit him in his final moments. Globally, 1.6 million people have died of the disease this year. Many were also isolated from their loved ones in their last days, even if they lived in the same town, let alone across the world.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the famous Urdu poet, wrote that during his years in prison, time collapsed so that “the occurrences of a century seem to be like the happenings of yesterday.” Grief, particularly of the remote kind, seems to work in the same way.

Suddenly, I am 5 again, and Chacha Jee and his wife, Baji, have come over, armed with the Sandwich House they painstakingly made for our birthday parties. There is a garden of lettuce leaves and cottages made of sliced bread. In the middle stands Mr. Potato, on legs of toothpicks, with a bit of carrot for a nose.

Then I am 9, spending sticky summer afternoons at their house, Chacha Jee making the hot chai such a hot day calls for.

Then I am 25 and sharing sly smiles with my brothers because Chacha Jee is singing his favorite song: “Tu Ganga ki mauj main Jamna ka dhara /Ho rahega milan yeh humara tumhara.” (You are the wave of the Ganges, I am a stream of the Jamuna /Our union is bound to happen.)

These are the happenings of yesterday, yet far more real than the ephemera of sun grazing the backyard, my foggy breath, my mother’s voice over WhatsApp, saying that Chacha Jee has passed.

My father was only 30 when my grandmother died, and often relatives would try to reminisce about her with him. Abbu, resolutely private in his mourning, firm in his belief that one takes grief to the prayer mat and leaves it there, would quote the poet Ahmed Faraz. “Dukh fasana nahi ke tujh se kahen /Dil bhi mana nahi ke tujh se kahen.” (Neither was my grief a story, that I may tell you /Nor did my heart agree, that I may tell you.)

In the style of a child forever looking up to her father, I aspire to that, but that is not how I process grief. Instead, even as I am on the phone, I think to myself, I will write into and out of this.

“What skies this earth has inhaled,” wrote Ameer Minai, and Chacha Jee was that — a benevolent sky over everyone who knew him. Born in a rural Punjabi village where men rarely spoke to children and never showed affection to their wives, Chacha Jee carved out a path of his own. I remember him arranging saucers, pouring out cups of chai for Baji and himself. Complimenting the little frocks my cousins and I wore for Eid, when every other man would consider that frivolous.

The sun is now setting upon that world, but without a doubt, that world was there. I saw it — where the worth of a man was his brooding silence, his coldness, his anger. There was that line of fathers, haughty and unforgiving. And there was that childless father of us all, Chacha Jee, laughing his shrill, girlish laughter, joking with everyone, treating even the youngest child with wonder and love and curiosity.

He was a captain in the Pakistan Army. Sent to Germany for training, he tricked an American officer into believing the pungent taramira oil he used to smooth his hair was a Pakistani delicacy to be enjoyed by the spoonful. At 82, he drove himself from Pindi to our home village in Talagang every other week, although my love for him will not allow me to sugarcoat this: Chacha Jee was a truly terrible driver, with a recklessness that was not complimented by capability.

If Chacha Jee was modern enough to have shunned those older, tormented ways of being, he was still hospitable in a way that only someone brought up in the communality of the village could be. He settled in the city but brought the wide-open doors of the dhok with him. When I had a fever and my mother was not around, Abbu deposited me at Chacha Jee and Baji’s house for the night, because there was no one in the family who cared for the sick as they did.

A Palestinian friend tells me that in Arabic they say, “Ili raba ma maat”: The one who raises others never dies.

Now I am a mother, and I find that grieving with a child is odd. The world tumbles on its axis, and yet complete despair seems impractical, because there is a hungry mouth to be fed, a pair of curious eyes watching as you weep. That day we learned that Chacha Jee was gone, my youngest brother, who was visiting, and I kept seeking the baby, not for catharsis (babies are terrible, squirmy huggers) but for comfort. He is new. He has years and years and years, inshallah. He will go places, to spots in time, where none of us will.

“Your absence has gone through me,” W.S. Merwin wrote, “Like thread through a needle. /Everything I do is stitched with its color.” And so it is with being a parent; every feeling, high or low, is refracted through that identity, considered in the context of that tiny body lolling around on the lime green quilt. Chacha Jee, then, is another part of my life that I will not be able to share with my children. I add him to the tablet full of real things — people I touched, places I trod — that will live on only as stories. And yes, stories are important. I know that because why else would I be here with you?

My mother tells me of a time when she visited her grandfather. He was remembering the people he had known in his life, laughing mostly to himself as he relayed this story or that. Ammi sat with him, mostly out of deference, slightly impatient because she didn’t know any of the people he was talking about. Suddenly, she realized that he was telling her all this because everyone who did know the people in his stories was gone.

Children can be brutal to the past. My brother remembers standing in a row for our grandfather’s funeral prayer and having a 4-year-old cousin whisper to him, “I bet it’s going to be Grandma next.” Everyone was together in the village for three days of mourning, during which the little kids ran around, hopping from one house to another. For months they remembered those days with extreme fondness. “We had such fun at Grandpa’s funeral,” they remarked.

But I am obsessed with my parents, and given the way these things go, there is a decent chance that my children will be, too, not for my sake but because that is where any honest attempt at understanding their own selves would lead them. Lives should be led in the present, the eye has to look to the future, but all meaning is past.

So where does that leave us, on this wintry day at the end of a year that has all been winter? In the past, I have been embittered by mourning deceased family members from afar, while everyone back home gets together and seeks catharsis in crowded rooms. This time, we are all far apart.

In 2020, the congregation of grief is online. We call one another and spin stories, which we then rehear from others and wonder: Did this story start with me, or are we all saying the same things? On the family thread, I send a screenshot of Chacha Jee laughing with his mouth wide open, the baby curled up in tummy time in the top right corner. A cousin quotes Khalid Sharif: “Bichra kuch iss ada se ke rut hi badal gayi /Ik shakhs saray shehr ko veeran kar gaya.” (He left, and the season changed /He left, and left the city desolate.)

For my brother, more resolute in his faith than I am, the consolation is clear. As Muslims, we believe that Muhammad will never abandon a lover of Muhammad. And Chacha Jee loved Muhammad, the cousin and daughter and grandsons of Muhammad, the followers of Muhammad, and beyond. Chacha Jee will be at peace. It is us, the living, that I worry about.

I worry for Baji, who will wake up without a partner of more than 50 years; her loss is its own universe. My father and mother, who will miss the kindest shadow in their lives. And us — my brothers and I, the baby. Life will distract us; it is good at doing that. We will have other people to love and be loved by.

All day, my brother and I hummed softly to ourselves, stray lyrics that let us obliquely touch the place that hurt. I started “Tu Ganga ki Mauj” but stopped after a verse. The next morning, I put on the coffee and turned on a song by Mehdi Hassan: “Muhabbat karne walay kam na honge /Teri mehfil mein lekin hum na honge.” (Your congregation will still have other lovers /It’s just that I will be there no more.)

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Of Death and Consequences

Religious Muslims in many nations are finding their sacred rituals of mourning disrupted.

The historian Leor Halevi.

By George Yancy

This month’s conversation in our series on how various religious traditions deal with death is with Leor Halevi, a historian of Islam, and a professor of history and law at Vanderbilt University. His work explores the interrelationship between religious laws and social practices in both medieval and modern contexts. His books include “Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society” and “Modern Things on Trial: Islam’s Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida, 1865-1935.” This interview was conducted by email and edited. The previous interviews in this series can be found here.

— George Yancy

George Yancy: Before we get into the core of our discussion on death in the Islamic faith, would you explain some of the differences between Islam and the other two Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism?

Leor Halevi: Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is a religion that has been fundamentally concerned with divine justice, human salvation and the end of time. It is centered around the belief that there is but one god, Allah, who is considered the eternal creator of the universe and the omnipotent force behind human history from the creation of the first man to the final day. Allah communicated with a long line of prophets, beginning with Adam and ending with Muhammad. His revelations to the last prophet were collected in the Quran, which presents itself as confirming the Torah and the Gospels. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are many similarities between the scriptures of these three religions.

There are also intriguing differences. Abraham, the father of Ishmael, is revered as a patriarch, prophet and traveler in Islam, Christianity and Judaism. But only in the Quran does he appear as the recipient of scrolls that revealed the rewards of the afterlife. And only in the Quran does he travel all the way to Mecca, where he raises the foundations of God’s house.

As for Jesus, the Quran calls him the son of Mary and venerates him as the messiah, but firmly denies his divinity and challenges the belief that he died on the cross. A parable in the Gospels suggests that he will return to earth for the judgment of the nations. The Quran also assigns him a critical role in the last judgment, but specifies that he will testify against possessors of scriptures known as the People of the Book.

Some of these alternative doctrines and stories might well have circulated among Jewish or Christian communities in Late Antiquity, but they cannot be found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. The differences matter if salvation depends on having faith in the right book.

Yancy: I assume that for Islam, we were all created as finite and therefore must die. How does Islam conceptualize the inevitability of death?

Halevi: The Quran assures us that every death, even an apparently senseless, unexpected death, springs from God’s incomprehensible wisdom and providential design. God has predetermined every misfortune, having inscribed it in a book before its occurrence, and thus fixed in advance the exact term of every creature’s life span. This sense of finitude only concerns the end of life as we know it on earth. If Muslims believe in the immortality of the soul and in the resurrection of the body, then they conceive of death as a transition to a different mode of existence whereby fragments of the self exist indefinitely or for as long as God sustains the existence of heaven and hell.

Yancy: What does Islam teach us about what happens at the very moment that we die? I ask this question because I’ve heard that the soul is questioned by two angels.

Halevi: This angelic visit happens right after the interment ceremony, which takes place as soon as possible after the last breath. Two terrifying angels, whose names are Munkar and Nakir, visit the deceased. In “Muhammad’s Grave,” I described them as “black or bluish, with long, wild, curly hair, lightning eyes, frighteningly large molars, and glowing iron staffs.” And I explained that their role is to conduct an “inquisition” to determine the dead person’s confession of faith.

Yancy: What does Islam teach about the afterlife? For example, where do our souls go? Is there a place of eternal peace or eternal damnation?

Halevi: The soul’s destination between death and the resurrection depends on a number of factors. Its detachment from a physical body is temporary, for in Islamic thought a dead person, like a living person, needs both a body and a soul to be fully constituted. Humans enjoy or suffer some sort of material existence in the afterlife; they have a range of sensory experiences.

Before the resurrection, they will either be confined to the grave or dwell in heaven or hell. The spirit of an ordinary Muslim takes a quick cosmic tour in the time between death and burial. It is then reunited with its own body inside the grave, where it must remain until the blowing of the trumpet. In this place, the dead person is able to hear the living visiting the grave site and feel pain. For the few who earn it, the grave itself is miraculously transformed into a bearable abode. Others, those who committed venial sins, undergo an intermittent purgatorial punishment known as the “torture of the grave.”

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Prophets, martyrs, Muslims who committed crimes against God and irredeemable disbelievers fare either incomparably better or far, far worse. Martyrs, for instance, are admitted into Paradise right after death. But instead of dwelling there in their mutilated or bloodied bodies, they acquire new forms, maybe assuming the shape of white or green birds that have the capacity to eat fruit.

For the final judgment, God assembles the jinn, the animals and humankind in a gathering place identified with Jerusalem. There, every creature has to stand, naked and uncircumcised, before God. In the trial, prophets and body parts such as eyes and tongues bear witness against individuals, and God decides where to send them. Throngs of unbelievers are then marched through the gates of hell to occupy — for all eternity, or so the divines usually maintained — one or another space between the netherworld’s prison and the upper layers of earth. Those with a chance of salvation need to cross a narrow, slippery bridge. If they do not fall down into a lake of fire, then they rise to heaven to enjoy, somewhere below God’s throne, never-ending sensual and spiritual delights.

Yancy: What kind of life must we live, according to Islam, to be with Allah after we die?

Halevi: The answer depends on whom you ask to speak for Islam and in what context.

A theologian might leave you in the dark but clarify that the goal is not the fusion of a human self with the divine being, but rather a dazzling vision of God.

A mystic might tell you that the essential thing is to discipline your body and soul so that you come to experience, if only for a fleeting moment, a taste or foretaste of the divine presence. Among other things, she might teach you to seek a state of personal annihilation or extinction, where you surrender all consciousness of your own self and of your material surroundings to contemplate ecstatically the face of God.

Your local imam might tell you that beyond professing your belief in the oneness of God and venerating Muhammad as the messenger of God, you ought to observe the five pillars of worship and repent for past sins. Paying your debts, giving more in charity than what is mandated and performing extra prayers could only help your chances.

A jihadist in a secret chat room might promise your online persona that no matter how you lived before committing yourself to the cause, if you beg for forgiveness and die as a martyr, you will at the very least gain freedom from the torture of the grave.

As a historian, I refrain from giving religious advice. Muslims have envisioned more than one path to salvation, and their ideals, which we might qualify as Islamic, have changed over time. Remember, for example, that in Late Antiquity and the Early Islamic period, ascetics engaged in prolonged fasts, mortification of the flesh and sexual renunciation for the sake of salvation. This was a compelling path back then. Now it is a memory.

Yancy: If one is not a Muslim, what then? Are there consequences after death for not believing or for not being a believer?

Halevi: Belief in the possible salvation of virtuous atheists and virtuous polytheists would be difficult to justify on the basis of the Muslim tradition.

But there is a variety of opinions about your question among contemporary Muslims who profess to believe in heaven and hell. Exclusive monotheists, those advocating a narrow path toward salvation, say that every non-Muslim who has chosen not to convert to Islam after hearing Muhammad’s message is likely to burn in hell. Exceptions are made for the children of infidels who die before reaching the age of reason and for people who live in a place or time devoid of exposure to the one and only true religion. On the day of judgment, these deprived individuals will be questioned by God, who may decide to admit them into heaven.

What about Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama? Will saints and spiritual leaders also meet a dire end? This is sheer speculation but I imagine that a high percentage of Muslims, if polled about their beliefs, would readily declare that nobody can fathom the depths of Allah’s mercy and that righteous individuals should be saved on account of their good deeds.

In the late 20th century, a few prominent Muslim intellectuals, yearning for a more inclusive and pluralistic approach to religion, drew inspiration from a Quranic verse to argue that Jews and Christians who believe in one God, affirm the doctrine of the last day and do works of righteousness will also enter Paradise.

Yancy: Does Islam teach its believers not to fear death?

Halevi: I am not convinced that it effectively does that. Or that teaching believers to deal with this fear is a central aim. Arguably, many religious narratives about death and the afterlife are supposed to strike dread in our hearts and thus persuade us to believe and do the right thing. Even if a believer arrogantly presumes that God will surely save him, still, he may have to face Munkar and Nakir, contend in the grave with darkness and worms, stand before God for the final judgment and cross al-Sirat, the bridge over the highest level of hell. All of this sounds quite terrifying to me.

Of course, I realize that Sufi parables may suggest otherwise. Like the poet Rumi, who fantasized about dying as a mineral, as a plant and as an animal to be reincarnated into a better life, some Sufi masters imagined dying so vividly and so often that they allegedly lost this fear.

What Islamic narratives do teach believers is not to protest death, especially to accept the death of loved ones with resignation, forbearance and full trust in God’s wisdom and justice.

Yancy: Would you share with us how the dead are to be taken care of, that is, are there specific Islamic burial rituals?

Halevi: Instead of giving you a short and direct answer, I would like to reflect a little on how the current situation, the coronavirus pandemic, is making it difficult or impossible to perform some of these rites. Locally and globally, limits on communal gatherings and social distancing requirements have devastated the bereft, making it so very difficult for them to receive religious consolation for grief and loss.

In every family, in every community, the death of an individual is a crisis. Funeral gatherings cannot repair the tear in the social fabric, but traditional rituals and condolences were designed to send the dead away and help the living cope and mourn. The pandemic has of course disrupted this.

In Muslim cultures, the corpse is normally given a ritual washing and is then wrapped in shrouds and buried in a plot in the earth. Early on during the pandemic, concerns that the cadavers of persons who died from Covid-19 might be infectious led to many adaptations. Funeral homes had to adjust to new requirements and recommendations for minimizing contact with dead bodies. And religious authorities made clear that multiple adjustments were justified by the fear of harm.

In March of 2020, to give one example, an ayatollah from Najaf, Iraq, ruled that instead of thoroughly cleaning a corpse and perfuming it with camphor, undertakers could wear gloves and perform an alternative “dry ablution” with sand or dust. And instead of insisting on the tradition of hasty burials, he ruled that it would be fine, for safety’s sake, to keep corpses in refrigerators for a long while.

In the city of Qom, Iran, the coronavirus reportedly led to the digging of a mass grave. It is not clear how the plots were actually used. But burying several bodies together in a single grave would not violate Islamic law. This extraordinary procedure has long been allowed during epidemics and war. By contrast, burning a human body is regarded as abhorrent and strictly forbidden. For this reason, there was an outcry over Sri Lanka’s mandatory cremation of Muslim victims of the coronavirus.

Every year on the 10th day of the month of Muharram, Shiites gather to lament and remember the martyrdom of al-Husayn ibn Ali, the third Imam and grandson of Muhammad the Prophet. This year Ashura, as the day is known, fell in late August. It is a national holiday in several countries. Ordinarily, millions gather to participate in it. This year, some mourned in crowds, in defiance of government restrictions and clerical advice; others contemplated the tragic past from home and perhaps joined live Zoom programs to experience the day of mourning in a radically new way.

It is far from clear today if, when the pandemic passes, the old ritual order will be restored or reinvented. One way or the other, there will be many tears.

Complete Article HERE!

How Jews and Muslims are burying their coronavirus dead

By Daniel Burke

The women gently pour purifying water for the woman in the coffin. A soul on the threshold deserves the utmost care.

When the ritual concludes, the body is ready for the earth, the soul for the afterlife.

But first the women, members of a Jewish burial society in Pittsburgh, must sing a final prayer.

They press the Mute button.

On Zoom their voices refuse to ring as one, so one singer takes the lead while the undertaker, who is Catholic, wraps the body in simple white shrouds.

D’Alessandro Funeral Home & Crematory occupies a building that has cared for the deceased and bereaved in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, since 1897. But this — a Catholic funeral director participating via Zoom in a centuries-old Jewish tradition — is likely a first, said Dustin D’Alessandro, the mortuary’s supervisor.

It’s preferable to perform the ritual in person, said Malke Frank, founder of New Community Chevra Kadisha of Greater Pittsburgh.

But many members of the burial society are elderly and fear entering a funeral home before there is a vaccine for Covid-19, the deadly illness caused by this coronavirus. Like so many other events during this pandemic, the taharah, the name for the ritual, is performed virtually, with a bit of ingenuity and help from undertakers.

While Frank and her fellow volunteers visualize washing and drying the body, D’Alessandro walks with them through the ritual step-by-step.

“We consider them partners in what we do,” said Frank.

Ancient rituals have been forced to change

Religious rites evolve over time, said David Zinner, president of Kavod v’Nichum, a national group for Chevra Kadishas, which is Hebrew for “sacred society.”

The resurgent pandemic, which has hammered the US with new urgency in recent weeks, has sent that evolution into hyperspeed.

While public health officials are still learning about how Covid-19 spreads, the CDC has said “it may be possible” that people could become infected by touching the body of someone who has died of the virus.

“We went from caring for a person’s body the way we have for four hundred years to suddenly not being able to do that anymore,” Zinner said.

The coronavirus has changed so much about how we live, it was inevitable that it would alter how we die as well. The graveside gatherings, shoulder-to-shoulder prayers, consoling hugs and timeworn rituals have been canceled or curtailed for fears of contagion.

Orthodox Jewish men move a wooden casket from a hearse at a funeral home on April 5, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

But grief abhors a vacuum. So traditions have been adapted, as clerics turn to emergency measures prescribed in their religious laws. That’s especially true of rituals, as in Judaism and Islam, that rely on touch and intimacy with the deceased. In some instances, funeral home directors and burial societies across the country are crossing religious lines to help perform the sacred rites of passage.

D’Alessandro, who has participated in 12 burial purifications, said Frank’s society taught him about the meaning behind the rituals, imparting a sense of their importance to the living and the dead.

“I’m glad they’re allowing me to do it, despite not having a background in Judaism,” said D’Alessandro. “It’s just an incredible thing to be a part of.”

He’s insisted on providing full Islamic burials

When Covid-19 raged through New York City earlier this year, Imtiaz Ahmed was proud that his was one of the few funeral homes that still offered ghusl, an Islamic purification ritual performed on the recently deceased. As in the Jewish tahara, the body is cleansed, usually by a close family member and burial expert, then dressed in simple white robes before it is buried.

It was quite a turnaround for the Pakistani-American, who used to drive a cab and was squeamish about touching dead bodies. Now, Ahmed says, he has a clear mission.

“Once Covid started I realized that I had made the right decision,” said Ahmed, 39, “because people need my help.”

A casket of a Muslim man who died from what was believed to be the coronavirus is prepared for burial at a busy Brooklyn funeral home on May 9, 2020.

But some of the employees at his Al-Rayyan Funeral Services in Brooklyn’s “Little Pakistan” neighborhood were more reluctant. Several quit, citing health conditions or fear of contagion, Ahmed said.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends taking precautions with rituals that involve touching the dead and urges funeral homes to suit up with proper protective equipment. It is not yet known whether dead bodies can transmit the disease, according to the CDC.

The Fiqh Council of North America, a group of scholars who offer opinions on Islamic law, said there are several alternatives to touching the bodies of Covid-19 victims. In a “worst case scenario,” the council said, Muslim leaders should adopt a different method of cleansing, using sand instead of water and not opening the body bag.

Others, such as Ahmed in Queens, consider Covid-19 victims martyrs, following the Prophet Muhammad’s teaching about believers who die in plagues.

“We believe that God forgives you for whatever you are not able to do,” said Yasir Qadhi, dean of academic affairs at the Islamic Seminary of America in Dallas and a member of the council of scholars. “If the government is asking you not to wash deceased bodies, as psychologically painful as that might be, it will not affect the deceased.”

Still, many Muslims feel guilty for not being able to provide full Islamic burials, said Dr. Edmund Tori, a medical doctor and president of the Islamic Society of Baltimore.

“When you modify the prayer, you are messing with something that is very, very dear to people,” said Tori, who said his society spent several months educating the community about changes to religious practices because of Covid-19.

Muslims in Baltimore were nearly as upset about alterations to the funeral prayers. In Islam, the funeral prayers, called janazah, are a communal obligation and typically draw large crowds to mosques.

Muslim funeral homes and mosques have tried to accommodate mourners by holding the prayers outdoors, in parking lots or other open spaces hospitable to social distancing.

But the desire and obligation to attend the prayers are so great, Tori said, that the Islamic Society of Baltimore has stopped sending funeral notifications — or sends them only to a small group of people close to the deceased.

When the architect of the Islamic Societies campus died of Covid-19, Tori said, leaders kept the news quiet, leading to some upset feelings.

“Let’s just say people were not happy,” said Tori. “Everyone wanted to be there. It took a lot for the community not to come.”

This group provides ‘midwives for the soul’

Zinner, the president of the national group for Chevra Kadishas, said the risks are too high for Jewish burial societies to perform the ritual purifications in person.

The live people in the room, not the deceased body, pose the greater danger, he said. Taharahs are often performed in small rooms, with people working and singing in close proximity.

“We have to recognize that the risk is high,” Zinner said, “and we have to wait until it’s reduced.”

Instead, Zinner recommends “spiritual taharas” like the virtual service in Pennsylvania.

But the Chevra Kadisha of Greater Washington, near the nation’s capital, is continuing to conduct in-person purification rituals, said Devorah Grayson, leader of the women’s section. (Women wash and dress women; men do the same for men.)

Grayson said her society has consulted with the National Institutes of Health and CDC and volunteers wear masks, face shields, two gowns and pairs of gloves, rain boots and disposable shoe coverings. Still, 35-45% of the society’s volunteers will not perform the ritual in person.

Grayson compared participating in the ritual to going grocery shopping in the pandemic.

“The first time I did it,” she said, “it was terrifying.”

But Grayson, who belongs to the Orthodox strand of Judaism, said she feels a holy obligation to help Jews on the threshold between this world and the next. One name for burial society volunteers is “midwives for the soul.”

When souls meet God, Grayson said, they should be dressed with dignity — pandemic or not.

And so, the volunteers will continue to perform the rituals. They have survived plagues before.

When the body is properly prepared, Grayson will help place it in the coffin, adding a little soil from Israel, and softly close the lid. The midwife’s job is over, and now the soul’s must begin.

Complete Article HERE!